


Dee: Take a Nap

by rainbowBarnacle



Category: Kagerou (Webcomic)
Genre: Gore, dream fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5238905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowBarnacle/pseuds/rainbowBarnacle





	Dee: Take a Nap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VastDerp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VastDerp/gifts).



Your stone cottage has all the trappings and decorations of a typical human home: bright rugs on the oak floors, glass baubles hanging in the windows, shelves crammed with books full of languages long since lost to time and plague, dried rosemary and lavender in the kitchen, and a full vegetable cellar below, even though you have no particular fondness for roots and tubers.

In your front room sits four delicate, ornately carved wooden chairs with pink velvet cushions, which you couldn't sit upon for all the silver in Ir, but they are simply too charming to alter. There is a matching table, upon which sits the pride of your collection of human things: a dainty porcelain tea set, with a teapot in the shape of a cabbage.

There's not a spiderweb to be seen in the entire place, though those who visit note that the doilies covering every available surface make some guests dizzy if they look at the golden threads too closely. Also disconcerting for some are the mirrors—you have them hanging wherever there is room for them, each one unique. Some are human-made, others are the finest work Ir's artisans have to offer, and some have never before held a mortal's reflection, even when one is standing in front of them.

Sometimes when you leave the house, you flash a grin into your parlor and watch dozens of prettily painted mouths smile back.

But today there are no guests, no hermits, no clever wood witches, no lost, hungry wanderers for you to feed little cakes and tea. You would invite your darlings Djinnko and Djannko to drop in, but their mother took one look at your snug, safe house and forbid that either of them should set so much as a paw inside.

And so here you are. Today it is raining, and you are bored to near insanity.

You sit in the four-poster bed upstairs (the only place big enough for you to arrange all eight legs comfortably beneath you) and frown into the fireplace, your chin in your hands. The room is as cozy as you know how to make it, warmly lit and full of the smell of burning applewood. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, and Kitty lie sprawled on their respective cushions, drowsing and purring.

The soft patter of rain against the windowpane is to your nerves like persistent tapping fingers all over, wearing bit by bit at your good humor.

Would that you were still on speaking terms with Rue, the weather spirit, but you have no tolerance for bad table manners at tea, even from elemental godlings.

It is only early afternoon and you have already completed your tasks for the day. Normally doing things the slow way—the mortal way—makes time fly, but not today. Preparing the cats' dinner of bunny meat and soft bones only took an hour. Dusting and rearranging every single gold-rimmed teacup in your collection took even less time. Not even painting your nails a becoming shade of bright beetle-wing green or modeling your new veils could bring you pleasure.

Spiders are naturally patient creatures, but even you have your limits.

“Gods' teeth, this rain is most obscene! Full of dull and deadly woe, so much Dee could just scream!”

You thump your skirts crossly, causing the trapped air beneath to billow out. Kitty, who had moved earlier from a cushion to curl up on your bustle, scrambles off again with an offended grumble.

“Oh gracious! Dee has ceased your slumbers! Settle now, and dream for me of sweet Midsummer.”

She slinks under your writing desk, where she stares at you reproachfully. The fireplace gives a loud pop, as if also scolding you, and your lips turn down in a fussy moue.

Moving carefully, you shift to lie propped up against your many pillows. The fire's rosy warmth radiates all along your arms and face, leaving the rest of you feeling rather chilled, but the longer you stare into the flames, the more indolent you feel about finding a blanket.

“Well, my cream puff, if you don't wish to wander those illusions, perhaps Dee will walk that thread herself and end this sad seclusion...”

You drift.

* * * *

The first you encounter is the fae boy with Fox's bond markings gracing his lovely ears. In his dream, he stands cursing in a field of poppies while he searches for his weapons. His foe, a manticore with a strange blank mask nailed to its forehead, paces and thrashes its tails, but it doesn't attack, perturbed by its enemy's odd behavior.

You watch as, instead of his deadly little knives, he pulls out a squeaking rubber duck, a stuffed owl toy, some bunny slippers, a Hello Kitty angel doll, a sparkling tiara. These join the growing pile of toys at his feet while he snarls and pleads until even the manticore seems sorry for him.

“ _GODS DAMMIT,_ ” he howls. “WHY IS THIS _HAPPENING_ TO ME?!”

Smothering your chuckles behind your fingers, you move on, wondering idly if some dreaming little girl somewhere keeps pulling knives out of her orbs of holding.

* * * *

The next dream sweeps you up and carries you into a battle inside of a dead forest. In the middle of it all is Starless, the human born under the star of the Wilsh Tree. You watch from behind her eyes as she fights endlessly, reducing groaning plague victims to so much ash, but they keep coming, wave after wave.

She tires, falters, fails. They rip her to pieces, and her soul and another's meet in a formless gray plane. This is not the first time this has happened. You realize they know one another. They loved each other when they were both alive, and even now that bright glow hasn't diminished. Their fondness for one another overwhelms you, as all human romances do, and its intensity almost makes you ashamed for witnessing it. But you must, you must, you can't help it, mortal love is so rare and so wondrous strange.

Their feelings are tinged with an aching sadness—Starless's work is not yet finished, and she cannot rest. They both know this. It is an essential part of who she is that she must always return and begin her servitude anew.

Her companion sends her back to the living world, for that, you learn, is part of _her_ servitude. Again and again, Starless battles mobs of furious skeletons, enormous, acid-spitting wyrms, basilisks, harpies, war cats, and frost wolves. Her god's power breathes through her and she wields it with grim determination.

You've seen such ruthless focus in others before, but this human is so very special. Her prowess and bravery aren't borne of bloodlust or rage, but an unwavering duty to serve and protect those who cannot protect themselves, so that she and those who come after her might further unwind the universe's secrets in peace.

You witness more of her deaths than you can count. Each time, her soul finds her lover's, and each time, her lover sends her back.

Eventually there is a break in the pattern. Starless returns from attempting to save a burning village. She is limping, exhausted, and her beloved manages to catch her just as her legs collapse. Even in death, her soul reeks of smoke and ashes. The cool resolve that shielded her from weariness and despair for so long is cracked, is warped.

“Rose,” Starless rasps. “I'm tired.”

Rose gathers her closer. “It's all right to be tired.”

* * * *

You expected the Champion's dream to be strange, but nothing quite prepared you for what you saw.

You hover, invisible, while the human boy—Kano, you recall, his name is Kano—scurries about operating a vast machine, turning knobs, pressing buttons, shoving levers. The machine churns and whirs and breathes, a living thing.

It's hungry.

The laboratory is harshly lit with crackling, buzzing bars of light. The floor is white, the walls are white, and there are no windows. Kano is silent while he works, clad in a crisp white coat that reaches his ankles and a pair of glasses that hide his eyes. The machine prints numbers on long strips of paper, which he ignores. You see graphs and charts on little screens, but you can't make heads or tails of what they're supposed to mean.

You follow the machine's sprawling mass outside, where you find vast wires and cables attached to an enormous metal golem. The ground here is brown, is dead, all of its nutrients sucked up by the machine and converted into usable energy. The sky looks like a raw, bloody wound, dark clouds churning in queasy patterns.

The golem is a work of art—woman-shaped, a graceful giantess clad in billowing maroon and gold robes with a matching sash tied over her eyes. She stands with her feet planted firmly, something cupped safe in her enormous hands. As you float closer, you see she's breathing.

You peer closer to see what she's holding, and for a moment you think it's another Kano—but no, this one is different. He only wears Kano's face. This one is starkly naked, with a blazing dragon tattoo encircling one arm. His body is covered in blackened burns and unspeakable lumpy cancers. His hair is falling out. Most of his teeth are missing. His eyes are miserable bruised pits. Every breath is pain, but he can't die.

The golem smiles and holds her treasure closer. You hear a ringing alarm sound from the building below, and then Kano shrieks “ _EUREKA!_ ” and begins cackling high and shrill as the mechanical woman, prompted by the machine, slowly closes her shapely fists tight.

The man wearing Kano's face starts to scream as his bones splinter, but he still can't die, and her shapely fingers with their manicured nails continue wadding and stretching and pulling him to messy pieces while the Champion's long, rolling, mad laughter floats up and up...

* * * *

Cho's dream is a bruise-colored world, all brown grass and dry yellow leaves. There are no trees, only a vast spread of vines and thorns whose pulp is silent to her. There is no birdsong or bee song. Nothing stirs in this place except the branches rattled by the wind, and Cho.

And you. You follow, invisible, over the course of several years while she wanders lost, picking her way through unforgiving thickets, her bloody footprints the only sign she was ever there at all. You watch as her feathers slowly fall out. Roots slither out of the ground and try to catch her feet, and eventually she lets them.

She sits, and you watch her skin grow hard and ossify, watch the last spark fade from her eyes. A deep, impossible sadness wraps its claws around your heart: Cho is alone, exiled and forgotten with no way to cope, of interest to nothing but mindless, hungry vines.

You press a kiss to her temple. “You are not alone, my fierce brave tree.”

As you turn to leave, a small orange flower unfurls behind her ear.

* * * *

You blink awake.

It all rushes back. You were never in your cozy cottage—that was _your_ dream. Instead, you are in the mountain shelter with dear Mindi dreaming her own dreams, cradled safe in her new web.

You tweak her big toe, and she twitches and mutters softly.

You smile. “ _Hee._ ”


End file.
